We are mere Shadows
by kissingsherlock
Summary: Post-war Hogwarts Dramione: Hermione finds herself estranged from her old life, old friends and even herself when she reenters Hogwarts after the war. In her desperation to rediscover what she wants in her life and to overcome the traumatic events of the war, she finds that she's not the only one craving to reshape their fate in a new world. Slow burn
1. Chapter 1

Hermoine kept mostly to herself after the final war at Hogwarts. Especially after the breakup. It has never been the same with Ron and Harry. After the deaths and trials, crashing back into everyday life seemed impossible. At least to her, that is. Ron was already dating another girl and drowning his sorrows between the lips of the seventh year witch.

Maybe that's why they broke up. Hermoine involuntarily lingered in the past, waking up from nightmares screaming, having her wand in her sleeve when she walked around Hogwarts alone, while Ron wanted to settle down and bath in their victory.

She couldn't let go that easy but the recurring questions of her friends forced her to distance herself from them. As much as her body was constantly reminding her of her trauma, she didn't want to remember.

One of those nightmarish nights when she just couldn't calm herself, she walked around Hogwarts with only her nightdress on. It was a mild summer night and her anxiety made her already sweat enough, she didn't want to overdo it with a jacket. The quiet hallways calmed her with their long emptiness and lonely song. Like flutes being played by the wind in between the alcoves.

When she came close to a corner she had rounded for the third time that night, she heard rustling. At first, she thought of Nearly Headless Nick roaming the castle near Gryffindor tower. But the accompanying footsteps were what made her cross him and every other ghost from the suspect list.

Her wand in her extended hand, she bolted around the corner, almost poking another Slytherin's ghost's eye out.

"Could you be a little more careful with that, Granger? Someone could get hurt." Malfoy stood before her in an emerald-colored robe that only barely covered his boxers and the t-shirt he wore under it, yet it mobbed the floor with its length. He was already about to walk past her, his eyes only small slits on his face. Hermoine had last seen his usually combed silver blond hair this unruly on the day of the war at Hogwarts. Draco's complexion didn't look any better, dark circles under his tired eyes and his mouth was a frown of its own.

"Would you care to explain what you are doing here?" Her voice was too bossy for someone who also strolled around Hogwarts past curfew and she knew it. But she also couldn't help her suspicion. Last time he was this troubled, he was about to kill someone. She didn't lower her wand but let it follow his back as he walked by her. Unexpectedly he turned to grimace at her.

"Would you care to explain how that is any of your business?" He looked too tired to be bothered but she only inched her wand closer to his throat as if it was a knife. She could certainly wield it like one. "Would you lower your wand, Granger! Merlins." His voice was cold enough for her not to follow his advice.

"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" She hissed his name like the snakish sound would make him understand her better. All he did was grab her wand and force her hand to the side as he stepped closer. His fingers were squeezing her hand so hard that her fingertips burned on her wand. A strange way for a wizard to demonstrate how he could overpower her easily. She expected him to tell her to go fuck herself and call her all sorts of names along with his favorite. She could already feel it in the air. The muggy sound of mudblood. The disdainful way he managed to make it sound worse than when anyone else said it.

"I'm walking my nightmares off. And judging by your attitude you are, too. So how about we both go our separate ways and relieve each other off our company?" His sober proposal disarmed her. There was considerably less anger in his voice than she was used to from him. Maybe he was just as impaired as her.

"How do I know you're not just on your way to make some stupid mistake again?" Her words fluttered. Hermoine didn't believe herself when she said it.

"What do you care?" Draco snapped, still holding her wand-wielding hand away from them both.

He was right. Why would she care? Why does she care?

"You don't look so great," Hermoine mumbled and lowered her hand which was hesitantly followed by Draco who let go.

"Charming." His voice was a lying mixture of disgust and annoyance but the way he remained so close to her proved him wrong. She gave him enough time to leave or hit her with an insult but he didn't.

"The war is still hard on everyone," Hermoine admitted and cursed herself at the same time to lay open her weak point.

Draco snorted. "Weaselby got over it pretty fast. He's celebrating with the little Hufflepuff in the library right now."

His remark prigged in Hermoine's heart. Somehow he still knew how to exploit every weakness of her to perfection. Even the ones she managed to cover up with a lot of effort.

"At least he has a victory to celebrate." Hermione shot back. She put her old defiance back on: lifting her chin and almost standing on her toes to be able to stare him straight in the eyes.

It took Draco a second to react but only barely. His brows twitched but the rest of his face remained the cold indifference it presented to everything else she had offered him.

"You're not as smart as I thought if you believe I wasn't relieved because you won."

Hermoine crumbled under the weight of his words and everything they indicated. "You ran into Voldemort's arms the moment he called. Like a little lapdog." It's gotten to a point where she wanted to provoke any kind of wicked reaction from him. Anything that made her hate him again.

Draco sneered and was about to say something but reconsidered. "You don't know what you're talking about. You're -"

"I'm what?" Hermione pressed further, inching closer. Her lips pressed tightly together. Say it already.

"Nothing." Draco pressed his eyes together even more if that was possible. "Here I thought one could have a normal conversation with a Gryffindor. Apparently not. You just can't get over your self-righteousness."

Hermione stared at him, having lost the ability to speak. She wanted to say something about his damn pride, his hubris, his assumption that the world owed him something just because he was born a blond pureblooded magic-exercising man. But she couldn't because right now they were both the same ignorant students. Too set in their way of hating each other to recognize the other's suffering.

When Hermione took too long to answer, Draco turned around, dragging his robe along like a cape of a fallen hero. He left her standing in the silent hallway with only her thoughts about what she could have said differently and his leaving footsteps.

Then his words dawned on her. He wanted to have a conversation and he didn't say 'a conversation with a mudblood' but he referred to her by her house. Like an acknowledged witch.

What has happened to Draco Malfoy that was so traumatic that his whole view of the world shattered?


	2. Rules and Regulations of Hating someone

Hermione had an abundance of classes to attent to for her last year at Hogwarts. The same ones she had prepared for and chosen before the trio had left Hogwarts before 7th year. The ones she specifically selected for her planned future as an Auror. How wrong it felt to study for her old dream. Rather pointless it seemed right now when she couldn't even walk around in the dark without an impending panic attack. But her brain told her to pull herself together and power through because as soon as she'll feel better, she will be thankful her past self did. After all, she can't just neglect her studies because she didn't feel good. She'd hate herself for it in the future. There's only one chance to get a good degree.

That's what Hermione repeated in her head on end, sitting under the flying skeleton in the Defense against Dark Arts classroom on the third floor. She's waited for ten minutes already for the class to start but some students were still missing and Professor Steward was still preparing his papers. The american professor volunteered to teach at Hogwarts for the very important year after the Dark Arts were introduced by Voldemort and abolished again after the war.

The dead dragon's wings fluttered without ever moving the skeleton form from its hung position on the ceiling. It did produce a deliciously light breath of air that made Hermione's locks dance in the early autumn warmth while she tapped her quill in the bottle of ink. She must look ready to study but in reality she just wanted to diffuse her thoughts from the painful knowledge which student was still missing. At the reoccuring thought of white hair and green tie storming into the classroom, she involuntarily blushed. Not the cute blush on the cheeks but the nervous nerve-wracking blush that started with red spots on the chest and crawled up the neck and into the brain with its unbearable heat and adrenaline.

At the slam of the entrance, she flinched and her eyes shot to the door like she was waiting for nothing else the whole day. She hated it and averted her gaze before she could even take the hasty silhouette in.

"Thanks for joining us today, Mr. Malfoy", Steward said sarcastically and started his lesson by swinging his wand and forcing the words 'Rules and Regulations of Nonverbal Hexing' to appear on the blackboard. A soulcrushing sigh unified the class and even Hermione let her quill sink next to her parchment.

While the Professor indulged in a very american monologue about Nonverbal Spells and their regulations in american magical society and links to England, Hermione's eyes wandered. It was increasingly difficult to hold her head up after the last night of aimless and sleepless wandering. At the beginning she just wanted to rest her chin on her hand for a minute. Now the class was almost over and her head was fully supported by her right hand. She didn't even bother taking notes.

"Now to the important question: How can mastering nonverbal spellcasting help us in defending against the Dark Arts?" The Professor's question dissolved in the bored silence of the room. "Maybe we ask someone who ought to know."

Hermione anticipated hearing her name and sat up straight for the first time this past hour. But it wasn't her the Professor called upon.

"Mr. Malfoy. Would you mind sharing your sagacity with us or are you too bored by my lecture?"

Hermione expected a look of anger on Malfoy's face. A threat about how his father would hear about this on his lips. But there was just a whole lot of silence from him. Enough for Hermione to look over her shoulder at the wizard. He indeed looked very bored and freshly out of bed with his unruly hair. It grotesquely contrasted his expensive and neatly fitted uniform. Just like the silence didn't fit the portrayal of a stinking rich pure-blood wizard of influence.

Slowly Malfoy sat up a little straighter like he only now realized he's been spoken to. Still he remained utterly speechless, his face in a frown. It was obvious he couldn't make out how to react to a teacher presenting him with such resentment.

"Would you care to answer my question, Mr. Malfoy, or do you need detention to set your mind on class again?" The Professor was aggravated to a point that made Hermione uncomfortable, reminding her painfully of Snape on a bad day. Only now the star Slytherin was the center of attention for the teacher's hostility. The classes whispering grew obnoxiously loud.

"The little traitor doesn't know how to defend himself against the Dark Arts. He was too busy cuddling up to Voldemort." A student howled and the class joined in to the fit of laughter. Malfoy's face froze like he's just been hit by a Petrificus Totalus.

"Maybe we should practice our Nonverbal spells on him since he wants us killed anyway." A Gryffindor girl behind Hermione suggested followed by hackling.

"You can't be serious." Hermione hissed at her. She can't believe herself that she just stepped in to defend Malfoy. The Gryffindors surrounding her stared like they thought the same. But there needed to be boundaries even in detesting someone for their gruesome crimes. Otherwise they would become nothing more than the Dark Wizard they got rid of.

"You can't be seriously defending that stuck up ferret." The girl riled back at Hermione.

"I'm not defending -" Hermione's scandalized words were cut short by Professor Steward.

"Alright, alright, kids. That's enough. Mr. Malfoy, you will profit from reading a book or two in detention."

All Hermione managed to do, finishing her argument with the violence-loving Gryffindor girl was squint angrily at her.

"I believe Mrs. Granger wants to join as well." The professor said casually, sorting his parchment while a sponge cleaned the blackboard behind him.

"What? No!" Hermione blurted out.

"See you after dinner at the library, Mrs Granger." Steward affirmed as if he didn't hear her plead. "Same for you, Mr Malfoy."

"Looking forward to it." Malfoy sneared, finally back to his old angry self and Hermione regretted ever standing up for this slimy ferret's rights.


	3. Labels

**Feel free to leave a comment. I love to read your opinions :) **

**Updated because format was all messed up- sorry for that. I don't know what happened.**

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Hermione was utterly disappointed. She couldn't really explain it but it was a lingering feeling of something being wrong with the world. It wasn't that she had expected a bit of favouritism after she fundamentally helped in winning the war. After everything, she had sacrificed. She obliviated her parents, she skipped school, she was tortured. Of course, she wanted to do it. After all, it needed to be done and she isn't one to complain. But she had dreamt up an image of her after the war. A picture of success and friendship and a thriving relationship after all they went through together. It had been the thing that kept her going.

She had a distinct picture of how the people were going to see her differently. Not the mudblood know-it-all whose sole purpose is to earn her magic by studying like a madwoman.

Not one of her dreams had prepared her for sitting alone in the Great Hall for every meal with only the gossiping whispers of other students keeping her company. Occasionally a first-year sat with her, admiring her actions and asking questions he could very well look up in a book or newspaper. Hermione soon caught on that there was a dare making rounds: who managed to sit and talk to her the longest. It was worth a chocolate frog. Two if one made her cry. Five if one managed to get hexed.

Hermione never wanted to be mean but soon she resorted to giving book recommendations and if that didn't help, she ignored them until they left.

Today there was no first year trying his luck at dinner. The whole student body was busy talking about how Hermione obviously lost her mind and bonded with the Dark side and how she earned her detention by dueling a Gryffindor to protect Draco Malfoy, the dark wizard. Gossip at Hogwarts got out of hand and distorted faster than it used to with all the suspicion of an after-war magical world.

Malfoy arrived late for dinner. He made a habit of it like Hermione made one of sitting at the farthest corner on the Gryffindor table. When Draco sat down there were barely any Slytherins left which was probably exactly what he had in mind. Still, it didn't take long for him to be swarmed by a bunch of overly enthusiastic students who couldn't read the room. Hermione observed the group of loud-mouthed Slytherins, trying to outdo each other with praises. And a slumping Malfoy in the middle, probably feeling right at home back in the centre of attention with a bunch of kids admiring him. How come the villain of the story was surrounded by a bunch of students and she was sitting alone, being talked about and rejected by her own like she had Scrofungulus.

She pursed her lips in annoyance and stared for a second too long. Malfoy met her gaze. He looked surprised at first, letting his shoulders sink back. She didn't look away because her pride dictated that she didn't want to seem like he caught her staring. He didn't look away either. She tried to convey something with her gaze, although she didn't know what yet. Maybe disgust. Maybe she wanted him to feel her distaste about how he was celebrated. But this went on for too long and then his lips curved into a self-assured smile and that was it. Hermione scoffed like she had just chewed on a diaper flavoured Bertie Botts Bean and decided now was the time to leave the scene of this travesty.

'This bloody self-assured rat-faced little git, buggery pure-blood bastard', was only the beginning of curses that raced in Hermione's head as she left the Great Hall to make it to the library early.

It's been way too long since she had to serve a few rounds of detention and every single one of her past punishments had been for a better cause than saving a ferret's behind. Now she even had to share her punishment with the reason for it. It's utterly unfair and the scowl on her face while she waited for Steward, represented it well. Malfoy walked around the corner with a close resemblance of Hermione's amount of anticipation on his pale face.

Her horror duplicated exponentially when she realized, she had to wait next to Malfoy until the professor arrived. He seemed to realize the same condition when he saw her waiting in front of the library already and promptly averted his gaze to look out of the windows while he made his way towards her, slowing down with every step.

Thank Merlin, Professor Steward rushed around the corner just when Malfoy happened to come so close that even smaller steps wouldn't keep him away from her for long enough.

"Dawdling won't help you escape detention, Mr. Malfoy. Move along.", Steward scolded when he passed him, resulting in Draco's expression darkening further.

They all arrived at the door at the same time and Hermione managed to slip in behind the professor and before Malfoy. Small triumphs like that were all she was granted these days.

"Plans changed. I came across the terrible condition of the potion's storage that Professor Snape has bequeathed me with and I thought it was just the boring task for two bright students for detention. Each grab a book and follow me."

They didn't even make it close to the shelves when two versions of 'A complete list of potions and other magical beverages – A guide for expert potioneers' flew towards Malfoy and her. The professor was already out the door and they hurried after him not to lose him. Although Hermione knew where Snape's potion ingredient storage was located, she wouldn't want to admit her second-year mischief to Malfoy, should they lose Steward.

It's been ages since she's been in the dungeons but Malfoy seemed to feel at home again, his posture relaxed gradually and the straining grab on his book loosened. She noticed that he fit right in to this damp, dark and cold environment. Like the toad that he is. Hermione forced her concentration back on the professor guiding them in an entirely too long detour through the dungeons towards Snape's Storage, but she kept her mouth shut. One detention with Malfoy was entirely enough.

"There we are.", the Professor finally said and the door to the room that wasn't more than a cupboard swung open. "Snape certainly had other priorities than keeping his storage tidy. One could think as a teacher he'd put some importance on keeping everything organized."

"I guess he was too busy being killed.", Hermione murmured, earning a scolding look from the Professor. She did it again, defending war criminals.

"You'd do better keeping your mouth shut when the only things coming out of it is sympathy for Dark Wizards.", Steward said while he made his way into the room, crowded with cardboard boxes and cauldrons. For once she had to agree with him. She noticed Malfoy watching her and when she met his gaze, he had a look on his face that she didn't like but couldn't exactly pinpoint why. She ignored it.

"I expect this room to be categorized and catalogued. Everything you need to know is in your books. You'll have until curfew today and tomorrow after dinner we'll meet here again. I'm hopeful two of the brightest students of the last year will manage until then." He looked at them like they were supposed to ask questions. Hermione indeed had one: Is this a legal form of punishment for students? But she swallowed it and only nodded.

"Splendid." Steward said quite sarcastically. "I will leave you to it then. Oh, and don't shake the vials. Some are explosive." That's how he left them in the dark dungeon corridor.

"That's definitely illegal.", said Hermione and stared into the storage room.

Malfoy only gave a sigh, moving behind her to get a look through the small entrance, too.

"I suggest we first levitate all the boxes and cauldrons out of there." She focused on her task to keep her brain from focusing on how close Malfoy stood behind her.

"You're not seriously thinking about doing that. We're not bloody house elves." He sneered and let his copy of the book fall flat on the ground, causing small clouds of dust to radiate from it.

She squinted at him and his assumption that only house elves ever clean a room.

"I don't know about you but I'm not too keen on spending the rest of the school year in this bloody dungeon with you." She stopped midway, realizing that he did spend the entirety of his school life here. She commenced with a sigh, confident in ignoring him and his moaning for the rest of the evening. "We better get to work."

Swinging her wand, she guided the boxes and cauldrons out of the room and they neatly stacked themselves according to their size on the opposite side of the hallway. As she stepped into the room to assess the situation, doxies fled the scene screeching. Funnily enough, exactly what she wanted to do, too.

She scanned through the shelves. What ingredients were still usable and which needed to be thrown out? What potions were already filled in little vials and randomly sitting among the ingredients? They needed to be picked out and sorted by hand since Accio was too unstable and risky for explosive potions.

"I suggest we start by sorting the potions. I can give them to you and you sort them out here. You don't happen to have a self-writing quill? We could catalogue them right away." She didn't wait long enough for Malfoy to answer. "We could hex a quill ourselves but I need to read into it first. Would be more time-consuming."

She started picking up the vials as she spoke.

"Hermione.", Malfoy started in a pitiful voice and it didn't sit right with her.

"What." She turned around with her hands full of vials and an angry tone in her voice. Only now realizing, that he used her first name. In a calmer tone that sounded almost scared, she continued. "Where do you want them?"

Malfoy looked around and nodded in the direction of neatly stacked boxes.

She sounded scared because she was scared. What was his plan, sounding all pitiful like that? Not once using _the word_ in the whole ten minutes they spent together. The uncertainty taunted her and she was more nervous with this version of him than she had been her whole wizarding life with a hateful, racist Malfoy.

Once she placed the potions on the smallest stack of boxes, Malfoy went right to work, turning vials in his long fingers, reading labels and forming groups of the same potions. Hermione regarded him because at first, she couldn't believe he actually followed her instructions. It seemed like a fever dream. Something so wild and entirely impossible it could only be a hallucination.

"Do you have parchment in there?", Malfoy asked, scaring her out of her thoughts. He caught her looking at him again, for the second time today. Hermione blushed and hurried back into the room.

"I'll have to look.", she stuttered and roamed through the mess frantically enough that Malfoy couldn't see her pink face as she dove into the cupboards.

Thankfully, the rest of the time was spent in mostly silence as vials piled in front of Malfoy. As she walked out of the room with the last handful of vials, Malfoy was bowed over a piece of parchment, his blond hair hanging into his face. He started a list of the existing potions in perfect curved handwriting. It dawned on her that she had never seen him write. Well, she probably had, but she had never paid any attention. Regret filled her, as she watched Malfoy lost in his task, elegantly swinging his black quill in a consecutive rhythm across the parchment. His unused hand, keeping the parchment from rolling up again. It had a lot of a forgotten poet of the muggle world in this dim light.

"You can put them here.", he nodded towards a free spot in front of him, not breaking the flow of his quill.

Hermione did what he said, thankful that he didn't look up.

"What are those?", she asked, noticing the pile of different coloured vials as a perfect way of switching the attention from her.

"Unlabeled. Maybe we find out what they are and label them."

Hermione sighed.

"Or we throw them out and no one will ever know they existed. Your choice, Granger." He laid his quill down and started sorting the new vials.

"We will label them tomorrow." Hermione decided. "It must be well past curfew already."

That's when Malfoy looked at her. "We will never manage to finish the vials and the ingredients tomorrow."

The moment he stared at her with his icy eyes, Hermione was back to her old self. "I don't want to spend all night with you, Malfoy. If we don't finish tomorrow, Steward needs to do it himself."

Malfoy refocused his attention on the vials. "Spending the night with me is not that bad. Ask Pansy." He smiled to himself as Hermione huffed, unable to find the breath nor words to speak.

"You're disgusting.", she finally uttered and stomped off, leaving her book behind. This complete, foul-mouthed ferret. Who did he think he was?

"See you tomorrow, Granger." He yelled after her, his grin easily distinguishable in his tone.


	4. Conviction

When Hermione sat in the cosy armchair in front of the fireplace with the Gryffindor common room slowly quieting down as students went to bed, she wondered what exactly it was that she preferred doing at night more than spending her night sorting potions. It certainly wouldn't be sleep because she already felt that she wouldn't get any. It's not that she wasn't tired. It's the continuous and circling thoughts.

The knowledge that she had spent hours alone with a Malfoy in the dark dungeons without anyone coming by. The knowledge that she hadn't feared him. She hadn't gotten a panic attack like the ones that rattled her awake after a nightmare. She hadn't even clung to her wand all that much, only to do her tasks. Maybe her pride suppressed it. Maybe that's how much she hated him. So much that even her all-consuming weakness wouldn't show itself.

She spent hours with a Malfoy alone and she didn't break down.

Maybe she was finally healing or at least dealing with her trauma enough to keep on top of her daily life.

She spent hours in the dark with a Malfoy. Not only some Malfoy. But the Malfoy who caused Death Eaters to invade Hogwarts. The one who was sent to kill Dumbledore. The one who watched her getting tortured in his own manor.

She shouldn't be okay while spending time with him. She shouldn't. The knowledge that she was, ate her up. It corrupted every sane aspect of her thinking. Hermione inhaled sharply. A student near her looked at her weirdly. It didn't feel like she inhaled any air at all. The fire suddenly burned hotter on her skin. The heat consuming her. Sweat formed on her forehead.

She had been okay with it. It had been okay. The dark hadn't bothered her, nor the Death Eater she sorted vials with.

Her lungs forced another breath and another. Too fast. She felt dizzy.

She closed her eyes, ignoring the room closing in on her. The walls crushing her while the fire roasted her alive. The armchair she was sitting on was slowly spinning while her own breathing wanted her dead. She felt the eyes of every student on her. She needed to scream.

Don't. She told herself over and over again. Don't, Don't, Don't, Don't.

A walk. A walk will help. Walking and walking and walking until the night was over and her thoughts were too tired to think.

She stumbled through the portrait and ignored the Fat Lady asking if everything was alright. Nothing was alright. She had talked to a Malfoy. The first fresh breeze of dusty hallway air cleared her mind a bit. She could already decide on a route to go. Her feet did the rest. A night of walking her nightmares off ahead.

~.~

Hermione's curriculum the next day was tedious. Not because of the amount of work but because she shared not one, not two but three classes with the cause of her last panic attack. And that was before she had to return to the dungeon after dinner. In the morning she decided it would be best to skip Charms so she had to see his ferret face only three times that day. The nagging part that was her past self cursed her for being so weak as to allow Malfoy to undermine her education.

After lunch, they had to retake Apparition class because their last certificates were lost while Snape had been headmaster.

The Great Hall was crowded with students since it was two years taking the class at once. Hermione welcomed that circumstance though. It equipped her with the ability to hide from a certain white-haired student. Overviewing the crowd, she kept to the far end, leaning against the back wall of the hall. She didn't need to relearn all the information that Twycross presented them with anyway. She didn't want to concentrate today. Her mind was still sleepwalking through the long sleepless night.

So she let herself get lost in her thoughts as the Ministry of Magic apparition instructor went on and on about how to avoid splinching. Useful information if one hadn't already run from a bunch of Death Eaters and almost killed your now ex-boyfriend because of splinching. Most of the subjects Hermione had to take again were things she had already used or practised. Maybe Harry and Ron weren't dumb at all for their decision to not graduate.

"You missed Charms today, Granger." The certain white-haired student she wanted to avoid said, comfortably leaning next to her against the wall. His whisper sounded more like a snakish hissing and very much hostile.

"Are you going to turn me in or what is the cause of this conversation?" Hermione's voice was way too high pitched to sound casual and collected. Her arms wrapped around her like they could fend off an attack better this way. It wouldn't be the first time Malfoy snitched on her and dragged her to the headmaster.

Malfoy looked at her very peculiarly. Then he shifted his weight and his gaze back towards the instructor. "No. I just wanted to know if you're okay."

Hermione wouldn't let his sincere tone sway her. "Since when does Draco Malfoy care about anyone but himself?"

He took some time to answer. Seemingly following the class. But Hermione felt his mind working. She could see it in the way his brows furrowed in what could be interpreted as concentration or worry.

"Since when does Hermione Granger skip class?" He gave back. It told her nothing at all about why he did what he did - talk to her. Yet she thought to understand the deeper meaning behind his meaningless words. Or she just made it up in her head. Either way, she didn't bother answering.

The new students had their first try at apparating. No one's arm got ripped off which was a success, she guessed. None got it right and appeared in the red circle, either. It didn't take a whole ten minutes until Malfoy next to her started to become restless, moving from one foot to the other. With every movement, he managed to catch her attention again, although Hermione tried her hardest to keep her mind from the wizard so close to her.

"Granger.", Malfoy said as a kind of goodbye when he finally decided to shove himself off the wall and walk away like he needed to be somewhere. She thought about ignoring it, too. But something about his behaviour didn't sit right with her.

"Where do you think you're going?" She went after him, way too scandalized by his behaviour to seem sane. It shouldn't bother her. Like missing class was the worst thing that he had ever done. Yet they both left the class. He didn't stop walking down the almost empty corridor. Everyone but a few green-tied students were in class. Just like they should be.

Malfoy's robe swung on his sides with the fast pace of his steps. Hermione was about to stop following him because she felt silly, running after Malfoy when he clearly had no interest in what her opinion was.

"I don't know if you noticed, Granger, but I've practised enough apparating last year.", his voice suddenly reached her. Way too loud in this echoing hallway. The other students could surely hear them debating. Hermione could already hear the gossip about this encounter. It was enough for her to feel the need to catch up to him. If it was only for the possibility to tone down her voice and his.

She had a hard time keeping up with his pace and speaking at the same time. "So what. I have enough practice, too."

Malfoy interrupted her. "Then skip class with me." He sideways glanced at her, not committing to the effort of slowing down. "Or don't. Your choice."

"But the test." She didn't know why she sounded so bewildered. She grabbed his arm anyway and he let himself get stopped way too easily, jaw tight. "You need the papers."

"What do I care about this bloody certificate?" He sneered at her, the familiar wrinkled nose and cold, angry look. Then his whole face went blank when his eyes found her hand on his sleeve. She let go immediately. Silence followed. A moment full of it as he stared on the ground in the direction where her hand had been. Absent-mindedly but not blank. There was so much emotion running across his face. Maybe now she had managed to break his facade of niceness. Maybe this was the point when he cursed her again. But there was a part of her that had all too easily welcomed the friendliness of his voice and the willingness to talk to her. This part seemed insistent on not letting her expect harshness from him again.

Hermione felt the strong need to fill the silence with words. Her low, thin voice a reflection of how much faith she had in what she was going to say. None. "You want to be a part of this society again. That's why you are here, aren't you? That's why we spoke for you in court. But we have rules here and you need to play by them now."

The moment she stopped talking, his face already changed into something different. Scary and angry. She wanted to tell herself that he was not angry at her, just at himself or the situation. But that made no sense. He hated her. He'd always hated her. There was no denying that he hated her kind enough to follow a dark wizard. The moment she had spoken the words, she knew it was the entirely wrong thing to say to a proud Slytherin.

His eyes fixated on her without his head moving in her direction.

"Don't ever touch me again." He hissed and retreated into a safer distance from her. They looked at each other longer than his words filled the air. The unspoken things that still lingered wouldn't let Hermione turn on the spot and go back to class. Although that's what she would have done before his brief moments of almost human behaviour. That's what she needed to do to shield this part of her that believed in him and got utterly disappointed as soon as she allowed it to exist and step forward. Hermione wanted to say something. She didn't know what. She wanted to snap back with something like she didn't want to touch him anyway. But it felt incredibly childish and she didn't.

Malfoy remained like he wanted something to be said, too. But he, too, didn't make a sound. When his cold expression wavered, he turned from Hermione and resumed his way. Without another word spoken, she was left alone in the corridor, unsure of what just happened. Relieved because maybe now she could fear him again and everything would be well. Things would return back to normal. Normal she craved. Familiarity was the thing that had kept her alive after the war. The familiar feeling of Hogwarts, where she knew exactly what her role was. Being smart and annoying racist people with her success. The worst feeling was coming back and realizing nothing was the way it had been before.

She wasn't the Golden Girl anymore. She was Auror Ron Weasley's ex-girlfriend. That's what she was reduced to and it charred her ego as well as her mind. She was more than the people she surrounded herself with and she was going to prove it to the world.

She huffed and turned on her soles, striding back to class with determination. She was going to show everybody that she was a fantastic witch. Grand on her own. Alone. Because she needed nobody.

~.~

Begrudgingly Hermione went into the dungeons that evening. Not only did she have to spend another two hours down there with him. But she also had to deliver the good news that they both would spend another evening in detention since Malfoy hadn't thought it necessary to appear in Defence against the Dark Arts. By correlation of whatever Steward thinks is going on, she, too, had to suffer for his wrongdoings. When she arrived, he was already working on the vials again. Everything was as she had left it the day before.

Malfoy standing in front of sorted boxes and cauldrons, his finger delicately sticking labels on small vials of green, luminescent and silver fluids. Some bubbled when he moved them. He didn't acknowledge her presence although he must have noticed. His ear had twitched when she turned around the corner. She wasn't the one to talk first, either.

Hermione took her place in the closet and made a plan for herself. Work was always the best distraction.

"Accio dragon's thorn.", was the first thing that was said into the tense atmosphere. A handful of thorns followed Hermione's request and she placed them outside on one of the boxes. She went through mermaid's scales, mandrake, spider fangs, cinnamon and dried cockroaches (She wasn't able to decide if they were ingredients or just the result of not cleaning the cupboard for years) and forming piles of them before she felt the gloating need to fill him in with the newest information about their next evening.

"Thanks to you we were sentenced to detention tomorrow evening again. If you could at least make it to Defence against the Dark Arts tomorrow we can spend the weekend in peace." Hermione kept looking busy while she was waiting for Malfoy to answer. Provoking him while they were alone in the dungeons wasn't the best choice but her wording was already the nice version of what she actually wanted to say. The original version she made up on the way down here, had a lot more of the words 'brat', 'self-centred' or 'egoistical' in them.

"Steward would have found another way to get me into detention again. If it wasn't my absence it would have been the fact that I actually attended his class." He said it very calmly, swinging his quill over the parchment. It was infuriating.

"At least I wouldn't be disciplined if you attended. Like it is my fault that you didn't get your buttocks to class."

"If you stopped talking about my behind for a second, I could actually apologize."

Hermione bit back another remark about how she could care less about his behind but she managed to only slip a "Feel free." out of her tightly pressed lips. Her eyes involuntarily wandered to his butt and long legs in black pants. Getting rid of the disturbing thoughts, she shook her head and tried sorting out the wand movement for her most effective cleaning spell. She had learnt it from Mrs Weasely when they had a family gathering a few weeks after Fred's funeral. Household work was the easiest way to connect to Ron's mother who was still heavily griefing while also taking some of the chores off of her shoulders.

"I didn't want you dragged into this. I just can't stand his face." Malfoy said almost casually.

"You can't stand his face? What kind of reason is that? Besides, is that your attempt at an apology?" Hermione lost her patience with her work and instead stared daggers in Malfoy's back and it seemed to work. He cringed and set his quill down.

"You're not making this easy for me, Granger." When he turned around, his jaw was clenched tightly but he didn't have the angry look on his face that he carried earlier that day. That was the only reason that made Hermione brave enough to utter her next words. It came out more hurt than she had anticipated but that didn't matter.

"You didn't for me either."

That surprisingly brought a softer look onto his face. Hermione almost felt satisfied just by the fact that he apparently felt bad. She didn't know a Malfoy could feel remorse. They all hadn't shown any even in a place when it could save your life: the Wizengamot. Images of him magically bound to the chair that forced him to sit more casual than he usually did while he tried to persist in his usual arrogance. The sweat on his temples. The dead eyes that he wore day by day for the last years.

"I know." He hushed and lowered his eyes to the ground she was standing on. His words were so short and low that she was sure she heard it wrong. "I don't dare apologize because I don't know where to start. What I have done to you and others. What you did for me at court."

She thought back to the days when she had forced herself to tell the truth about what she had witnessed. Something dark in her wanted to see him in Azkaban forever. Lost and forgotten. The way she had felt on the floor in his manor when Bellatrix tortured her and he only watched. Hermione knew that what she actually had to say would relieve Draco of a lot of accusations. It took all her will to testify for him and not against. The court sessions she had to attend were helping a little bit in assuring her that he had met his punishment already. He looked like a lost boy in the middle of a room full of people who hated him and his family. His mask held together by his pride alone. The time he needed to spend in custody beforehand had been enough for him to look sickly. Now she considered it could also have been his conscience torturing him accordingly.

Hermione spoke for him. Not his family, just him alone. Because the better part of her knew that he was the victim of his own circumstance. It was his family that put pressure on him, apart from the obvious threat of being killed by Voldemort himself. After all, he had done to her and others, after all the school years of bullying. He was still just a student, brought up in a terrible mindset and nurtured with racism and privilege. Pride was his only backbone and you can hardly hold it against a 17-year-old to give in to the crimes to save himself and the ones he loved most. Hermione had done a lot of things to save her parents, too. Like, move them to another continent against their free will.

Malfoy's expression darkened the more the silence dragged on. He shifted, almost ready to turn back to his work. But she wouldn't let him get off that easy.

"You know, part of me wanted you in Azkaban for what you've done." Hermione tried really hard not to tear up. Her nose pricked already and it was sheer will that kept her eyes clear. She crossed her arms, expecting another outburst from him.

"I would deserve it. But thanks to you I don't have to and I appreciate it." His voice remained soft, soft enough to feel genuine. Still, it made Hermione feel weird. Thanks to her he was walking free. A bitterness poisoned her mind. Thanks to her this murderer walks free and can plan whatever. Unattended. Near her. Near everyone she fought to protect.

She uttered a weird huff, something between a bitter chuckle and embarrassment, and suddenly felt the need to avoid his gaze. "Don't make me regret it."

"I'm trying not to." He smiled and Hermione felt the sudden need to pretend to be busy again. She charmed the storage room dust free and the cabinet polished with Mrs Weasely's special spell while Malfoy still watched her. "If you ever need something, don't hesitate to ask me."

There it was again. The rich privileged boy speaking about alliance like it was something you can buy. Like he could make up for her help in any way. Like she did it for him. She gave him a serious side glance. "You're not indebted to me, Malfoy. I did what I felt was right. If I'd done it for you or to gain something I wouldn't have done it at all."

"I'm not offering my firstborn son, Granger. Stop making this weird. I wanted to offer you help with homework or something, maybe a butterbeer if you prefer."

Hermione cut him off, furious because of his privileged attitude. "I'm not going to get a drink with you. I don't even like you." The more she got agitated by his ideas, the faster she picked things off the shelves. Soon she had both arms full of ingredients with nowhere to put them because she would not go out there near Draco.

"That's what you're taking out of this?" He laughed and turned to his own work again. "You're really something else."

She wanted to throw something at him. Preferably the things she needed to carry out there. She wanted to make him feel her dislike for the way he was talking to her.

"I'll take that as a compliment." The words barely escaped her mouth between her gritted teeth.

"Feel free." His voice was still full of his smile as he repeated her exact words and Hermione realized immediately that she never heard him speak this way to her. He used to reserve a lot of distaste for her in his voice. This new kind of voice was usually for his closest friends. Not even Crabbe and Goyle who he used to command. But his genuine friends, maybe his girlfriend, too. Although Pansy varied in both the commanding and the friendly category depending on their current status.

So he thought they're friends now? Because he ridiculed her in dark dungeons didn't make them friends. Just because he didn't spit mudblood at her anymore, doesn't mean everything is forgiven.

The cautious part in Hermione stomped the pretty feelings about him down and replaced them with their respective counterparts again. What she needed was revulsion. Annoyance. She needed to dislike him enough to find witty come-backs.

The worst part about her had tricked her again. Her ability to see the good in people and always hope for the best. Hope being the key here. When it came to Malfoy she never knew if he really meant what he was saying. It could all be an elaborate plan to ridicule her, to ease her in trust until he could strike, out of the hidden. She had to look past his mask and see him for who he was. A lying murderer. A Death Eater. A racist who inhabited the worst part of her teenage years.

So 'friend' was the thing he wanted her to think. Something was up. He had a plan in mind. Somewhere behind the friendliness lurked the darkness that he kept so well hidden.

Hermione's heart finally burned with purpose again. She wouldn't let him get away with it. She had given him this one chance to better himself at the Wizengamot. And if he was going to betray everyone a second time, it would be her to convict him.


End file.
